GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY., 1879 , 
509 
combined witli their makers* insufficient appreciation of the value of a 
heavy shell with small bore, their long-range fire was that of a 
howitzer rather than of a gun. The Germans clearly understood this 
in 1870, and their constant endeavours to get to close range show that 
they appreciated the only method of even partially counteracting this 
weakness. On the other hand, the want of self-defensive power on the 
part of the guns at close range rendered this course a peculiarly dan¬ 
gerous one, and it was only by the skill and valour of the gunners, 
and the large number of pieces which were generally massed, that 
these tactics were carried out to a successful issue. 
The great curvature of the trajectories rendered a very exact know¬ 
ledge of the range essential. This, under the conditions of battle and 
without range-finders, was often impossible, owing to the difficulty of 
judging where the shells burst. Moreover, this evil of curved trajec- Want: of 
tories was aggravated by the want of a good man-killing projectile and £3 fuzes. 3 
by the almost sole use of percussion fuzes. England certainly for a 
long time occupied the best position with regard to projectiles; the 
Armstrong segment being a better shell for field purposes than any 
percussion shell used in Europe up to 1870. But it was a compromise, 
and, like many compromises, was not a great success. Introduced to 
act as and supersede common shell, shrapnel, and case, it was soon 
found necessary to re-introduce these latter projectiles. When fired at 
targets representing troops in close formation, at known and tolerably 
close range, it did well, but as conditions of practice were departed 
from, and it was fired at unknown and varying ranges, over broken 
ground and against troops in loose formation—in fact, the more nearly 
conditions of war were approached—the further it fell behind its rival, 
the shrapnel. In respect of projectiles, however, the rest of Europe 
was generally further behind. Even in 1870 the Germans had hardly 
anything but common shell and percussion fuzes. This shell broke 
up, it is true, into more fragments than our common, but not into 
nearly as many as our segment. 
Thus, with a very high trajectory, the naturally local action of a 
percussion shell was rendered more local, and in soft ground or against 
the face of a hill sloping towards the guns, the shells were almost 
buried when they exploded, and those that did hit the object against 
which they were directed did scarcely any more damage than solid 
shot would have done. 
The French did, indeed, introduce shrapnel and time fuzes, but the French 
guns which fired them were of very large calibre in proportion to the Soreim 
weight of the shell, which were thus much retarded in flight; the 
muzzle velocities were very low, and the fuze could only be set to 
burst the shell at, at most, five different ranges. A certain amount of 
effect might have been produced had the fuzes been good, but under 
the circumstances it is not wonderful that the effect produced by their 
fire was trifling. As we said above, the want of range-finders was 
especially detrimental to guns like the French and German of 1870, 
the high trajectories of which rendered it very desirable to know the 
range exactly. We thus arrive at the state of affairs at the date of 
introduction of our present M.L. field guns and the close of the 
Franco-German war in France, 
